Atlantian Royalty
by Animelover28
Summary: A mysterious young woman joins the team at the Atlantis City, who is she and why does she know so much about the city's advanced technology. Rated M for possible future adult content
1. Chapter 1

_**I don't own or have any rights to Stargate Atlantis or it's characters.  
**_

_**As this is my first submission, I would love constructive feedback. Thanks**_

Chapter One:

"Great, these are the new recruits? The sarcastic deep voice that could only belong to Dr Mckay proclaimed.

"Now Rodney, remember your promise to be nice to this batch, or like the last lot we won't have any who will want to remain." Another male voice implored him.

"You can't honestly believe the last lot not wanting to stay was my fault Radek." Mckay tilted his head at the scientist who mealy raised one eyebrow in response.

"Oh come on, Wraith attack, replicator attack, city almost being destroyed didn't have anything to do with it." Mckay immediately sprouted off in his defense.

"It may have not helped, but I'm pretty sure the deciding factor was you." Radek Zelenka sighed.

"What Radek is trying to tell you is that you were the straw that broke the camels back Rodney." Another male voice joined in the conversation.

"Thankyou Colonel Sheppard." Mckay murmured as Radek smiled at the man who was incharge of protecting the city and it's inhabitants.

John Sheppard stood with the two Doctors and watched the new intake make their way through the wormhole into the control tower of Alantis. The height of the observation deck allowed them to watch the looks of awe upon the newbies faces, who were mostly scientists, and remain for the most part unnoticed.

"Has Carter and Teyla come through yet?" Sheppard asked as he scanned each new arrivals face.

"No, they apparently decided they would come through with the last of this group." Mckay humphed, not seeing anyone who would remotely be near his high level of brilliance.

"Hmm, I don't recall her face being on the shortlist." Radek watched a young woman in her middle twenties emerge through the gate with Colonel Carter and Teyla.

Both Sheppard and Mckay considered the woman, and as if sensing their regard she raised her head and looked at them briefly before continuing whatever conversation had been going on with Sam and Teyla.

"I wonder who she is?" Radek asked before sighting a fellow chess club member and excusing himself from their company.

Mckay headed down to the gate platform intending to find out who this new recruit was, with Sheppard on his heels with the same intention.

Col Carter looked up in time to see the two men striding towards them "Aah, John, Rodney just the two I wished to see." She smiled at them, "I would like to introduce you to Dr Harbourne, Miranda this is Lt Col John Sheppard and Dr Mckay."

Big hazel eyes smiled up at them "it's a pleasure to meet you colonel, Doctor." A small hand was held out in invitation "Col Carter and Teyla spoke of you both quite often."

Both men shook her hand and studied her carefully. Dr Harbourne was small of statue, probably around 5ft one. Her medium brown hair was tied back in a simple pony tail. Her face had no make up, her nose was small and turned up slightly at the tip. She was dressed in the standard Alantis uniform and but did nothing to hide her small but feminine build.

"And what do you do?" Mckay asked bluntly, causing Carter, Teyla and Sheppard to roll their eyes and sigh with exasperation.

"A bit of this, a bit of that" Miranda's face remained serious but her eyes began to twinkle with amusement.

"Miranda's an anthropologist but with a firm grasp on the Ancients. She's just spent the last year studying with the Asgard, comparing their information on the Ancients to what we know." Sam quickly jumped in before Rodney could respond to Miranda's answer.

Miranda smiled, her excitement clear "it was amazing. In fact it filled some of the holes we had. But I also got to see first hand how the asgard society works, the different hierarchys. It was a most beneficial visit." She turned to Sam "now if it's alright I'd like to make my way to my room. I need to unpack and have a sleep."

"Of course, Teyla" Sam smiled and turned to the Athousian woman.

"Yes, Dr Harbourne this way." Teyla smiled and led the anthropologist away.

"Another Anthropologist?" Rodney frowned "And why does she need to sleep, everyone else normally wants to go exploring."

"Maybe because she's tired Mckay." John turned back to Sam.

"I hope it isn't an indication of her work ethic." Mckay snorted

"Or it might have something to do with the fact she had only gotten back to earth 24 hours ago and had been immediately assigned to this recruitment. From what I can gather she hasn't had sleep for almost 36 hours, the last 24 hours was spent having to whiz through all the necessary security and health checks." Sam informed them.

"hmm, well we'll see." Mckay muttered before heading off to find Zelenka to quiz him about whatever discovery he had most recently found.

"She's that bubbly after not sleeping for 36 hours." John smiled "She's going to annoy Rodney."

Sam grinned "yes, that had definitely occurred to me." And with a flick of her hand changed the subject "so whats happened since I've been gone." And walked away with the Colonel updating her on two weeks worth of action.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Chapter Two:

Dr Miranda Harbourne had been awake for several minutes now, lying in her bed, in her new quarters staring at the motifs on the roof. Sighing she raised her wrist to her eyes to see what time it was and groaned at what she saw. 3am, it was 3 am and she didn't know what day it was. All she did know was that she was fully awake and the chances were that nobody else would be. Sighing she stood and made her way to the small compact bathroom that was adjoined to her quarters. That was the problem with travelling great distances, even if it was by stargate. It totally threw her system out of whack, not helping was the fact that she had been awake at least 12 hours before she had arrived at Stargate command on earth and then had been immediately added to the Atlantis recruitment, having to rush through the tests in a 24hour period that everyone else had done over a 1 month period.

Finishing her shower, she grimaced when her stomach grumbled about it's hunger and wondered where the mess hall was, or if it was even opened at this time. With a sigh she left her quarters and followed the directions Teyla had given her, hoping with all her heart she had remembered them correctly. Walking towards the end of her hallway she found the small transporter and pressed the area of the map Teyla had told her contained the cafeteria. Within twenty minutes after a lot of wandering around, then finally locating another human she arrived at the cafeteria and found it operating with a the nightshift team. Grabbing what looked like pancakes, scrambled eggs and some sort of meat she sat at a table with a huge pot of coffee and dug in.

"Hungry I see." A male voice beside Miranda made her raise her head as she was just eating the last forkful.

"Colonel Sheppard, I'm surprised to see you up this early?" Miranda smiled up at him "Please have a seat." She waved her hand at the coffee pot "I can offer you a cup of coffee."

"Thank you." Sheppard sat down and poured himself a cup and took a sip, a look of surprise came over his face causing Miranda to grin widely, he quickly took another sip.

"I take it you approve of it." She asked leaning back in her chair.

"It's much better than what we've had here recently." Sheppard raised his cup and sniffed "mmm, smell's better too."

"It should, I brought entire pallet load of it with me." She shrugged at his look of inquiry and went onto explain "I love my coffee and though I had arrived at Stargate command 24 hours before I came here, it was long enough to hear about the sometimes lack of quality coffee."

"So, you brought entire pallet load of it." Sheppard sipped it, treating it almost like gold.

"Yeah, a pallet for me and two pallets for the city." Miranda sighed and stretched "My pallet is safely hidden at the moment and is only for dire circumstances."

"So why come to Atlantis?" Sheppards blue eyes stared at Miranda intently.

Miranda sighed "couple of reasons. Firstly what's been happening here since the first team arrived was explained to me in great detail. The powers that be feel that with my knowledge of the Ancients and other little specialities would be beneficial to you and the city, particularly since Dr Beckett lost his life."

With a blank face Sheppard leant back casually "I would think Mckay and the others they have here would have been enough." He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Yeah, but I'm unique." Miranda winked at him causing him to smile, aware of the close relationship between the top five people at Atlantis and the deceased Chief Surgeon and the former head of Atlantis. "My knowledge of the ancients is vast, but it's my ability to be able to locate the appropriate information that will be useful." She saw him frown "I for some unknown reason seem to know exactly how the ancients stored their information on any form of database."

"Hmm, I could see how that would be useful." Sheppard nodded slowly "so what other reasons?"

Miranda paused and studied him carefully, with a serious face "Because I look good in the uniform." And at his snort of amusement continued "seriously, just cause I travel through space doesn't mean I don't have my little quirks. Imagine having to introduce yourself to a newly discovered civilisation wearing orange or lime jumpsuit, or both. I make a better impression in this colour and it goes with almost anything." Miranda patted the gray jacket.

"I see your point." Sheppard shook his head "you'll drive Rodney insane." And grinned at the thought of it.

"It will certainly be interesting." Miranda agreed. "So why are you up so early."

"For the first couple of days we monitored the new guys. They always seem to get lost when they go exploring." Sheppard sighed.

"With a city this big, and limited personnel I imagine that can be a problem." Miranda said remembering her little side trip that had added 20 minutes onto her travelling to the cafeteria. "On that note, I don't suppose you could tell me how to get back to my room?"

"got lost on your way did you?" Sheppard inquired as he stood.

"Well, I don't like to think of it as getting lost, I simply took a scenic route." She replied.

"hmm." Was all that he said as he lead her out into the hallway.

John watched Dr Harbourne carefully as he led her back to her room, she seemed rather too awake to be going back to bed.

"So now that you're up what will you do for the four or so hours until everybody else wakens." He was curious

"well I have a couple of options. First I could access the Ancients database on my laptop and start working through my priority list." Miranda flicked one finger.

"You've only been here 12 hours and you already have a priority list?" John seemed astonished.

"I formed one after listening to the conversation between Teyla and Col Carter. How to create ZPM's, or recharge the one's we have, etc, etc, etc." Miranda flicked up a second finger "or I change my clothes and figure out where there's enough room for me to do some exercise" third finger is raised "or I watch some of the DVD's I brought along."

"You brought DVD's along?" John asked interested.

Miranda nodded "yeah, before my trip to the asgard world I made a deal with my brother. For rent free living in my apartment he agreed to buy one of every movie released during my time away."

"You were allowed to bring that many DVD's." John's eyebrows arched, remembering the strict rule the first team had had to abide to.

Miranda slanted him a sly look "Well, the thing is, they really wanted me on this trip. I was tired, looking forward to the quality catch up time I was going to have with my family and friends." Miranda sighed deeply "I needed an inducement."

John's grin widened "So you blackmailed them."

Miranda immediately shook her head "no, I didn't blackmail them. We came to an agreement that benefited both parties. They wanted me, and I wanted my coffee and DVD's." then she shrugged "besides, the way I figure it, I won't be the only one getting any use out of them. I fully intend to share with the rest of the population."

John suddenly hooked his arm around her shoulders "of course as a ranking military officer I feel it is my duty to screen these DVD's, to ensure that none of the population could be offended or harmed in anyway."

This time it was miranda's eyebrows that rose "you mean you just want to see them before anybody else."

"Well Yes" John answered "but I obviously have a lot of important jobs to do, but this I can put at the head of my priority list."

"Well your more than welcome to join me, infact since you're the ranking military officer incharge of security, you can choose." Miranda ran her hand down the crystals to open her door and stepped through. "just to warn you though I tend to talk through movies."

Sheppard just smiled "It's alright, after a couple of years working with Rodney I can tune almost anything out."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Chapter Three:

Miranda smiled softly, it had been almost 5 hours and Colonel Sheppard had fallen asleep, his head had fallen back and was snoring quietly. She had tried once to turn of the movie that was playing, but all it did was wake the Colonel up and he had continued to watch it for about 30 minutes before he fell back asleep. So she had given up and began to go through the Ancient Database taking notes, the first thing she had to do was to discover what the ancients had called their power source. She was also compiling a list of all the labs the ancients had running when based at Atlantis, their locations and other scientific junk that she believed would benefit the current occupants. By doing this, it would hopefully cut down most if not all accidents that might occur. Miranda was interrupted by a beeping coming from her door, letting her know that someone was outside wanting to see her. Jumping up off her bed she glanced over to see the noise hadn't disturbed her invited guest and jogged to the door. With a quick wave of her hand the doors slide open to show her a smiling Teyla.

"Good Morning Dr Harbourne, how did you sleep?" the Athosian woman stepped inside, but raised an eye brow at the woman's shushing motions.

Miranda pointed to the sleeping Colonel infront of the screen "I slept fine Teyla, please call me Miranda. I woke up around 3am, found the cafeteria and bumped into the Colonel who escorted me back to my quarters."

"Why is he sleeping?" Teyla was amused at her leader's behaviour.

"I brought a lot of movies with me, Colonel Sheppard felt that it was his duty to view some before being release to the population." Miranda walked back to her bed, grabbed her boots and started to put them on.

"Ah, so he wanted to watch them before anyone else." Teyla shook her head, "Major Lorne has been trying to get a hold of him for the last ½ hour."

Miranda grabbed her jacket, sliding her arms into it she grinned "so that's what that beeping was. He slept right through it, he only woke up briefly when I tried to turn it off, started watching it again and fell asleep within 15 minutes." She zipped up her jacket and stood beside the athosian woman "you can wake him if you want."

"if you do not mind." Teyla stepped forward grabbed the edging of the seat and tipped him off.

Miranda started laughing the moment Sheppard hit the floor, he leapt up and started moving to grab his weapon when he realised it wasn't there.

"Did you have a nice nap Colonel?" Teyla's voice broke through the sleep fogging his brain.

John whirled around to face his team member "I was." He looked around and spotted Dr Harbourne "Why didn't you wake me?"

Miranda shrugged "you looked like you need the sleep, so I left you." She turned to Teyla "if I grab my stuff, would it be possible for you to take me to the café, I'm hungry again."

"of course Miranda, this is why I stopped by. John, Major Lorne has been trying to locate you." Teyla moved towards the door, waiting for Miranda to join her.

John rubbed his eyes and yawned "he has, did he say what for?" following the woman out of Dr's quarters.

"I believe he wishes to brief you on his team's trip." Teyla smiled at him before turning to walk with Miranda in the direction of the mess hall.

John watched them go before activating his com, "Sheppard here." And went about his daily jobs.

A month had passed and Miranda felt she was settling in quite nicely. She had located a lab within the main area for her to use, with the Okay from Carter and Mckay. Her list of Ancient labs within Atlantis had been gratefully received by both Carter and Sheppard, Dr Mckay had been more interested in her list of what the labs had been used for or contained. She was still working upon her ZPM priority, which her lab played important part, according to information she had gathered off the database, majority of the research that had gone into the ZPM's had occurred in this exact room, which made accessing the information stored on the external database within the console important.

Nothing exciting had happened, the wraith and replicators had yet to find the location of the new home world and apart from the seemingly usual interference with wraith upon other planets Atlantis seem to be having a quiet spell.

It was late at night and Miranda had fallen asleep at her desk, waiting for the results of her database search when the doors to her lab slid open. A figure crept in, noticing the Doctor was still sleeping moved towards her. A hand slowly reached out and grabbed her shoulder causing her to leap from her seat shouting "I didn't touch anything, it wasn't me."

It was the male laughter that brought Miranda to the present and she whirled around to see John Sheppard standing there with a smirk on his face.

"caused some trouble before have we." John couldn't help but laugh at the expression of shock upon Miranda's face.

Miranda glared at him "You think that's funny do you."

He laughed more "very." He agreed

Miranda frowned, then smiled sweetly "well, we'll see how funny you find it after I take back my coffee and movies."

It had the desired effect, he immediately stopped laughing "oh come on Doc, don't do that."

"not so funny now is it colonel." With a humph she turned back to her monitor and saw that it was only just half way through the database. "What can I do for you colonel?"

John winced at the icy tone "no one's seen you all day, I decided to come and escort you to the mess hall before we have the movie screening."

What time is it." Miranda glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost 8pm. "oh god, I didn't realise it was this late, I'll be with you in a flash."

John watched in amusement as Miranda rushed around her lab, shutting down all but the console she had been asleep on.

"So, whatcha been doing?" looking at symbols he recognised to be Ancient.

Miranda pulled her hair back up into a ponytail "Doing a Database search on the creation of ZPM's. It's taking so long because there is a massive amount of data stored in this console and my search criteria is very specific."

"How long have you been at it?" John studied the woman in front of her intently, noticing the shadows under her eyes.

Miranda smiled up at him "the search has been going for about 2 days now."

"you haven't been here that long have you?" John walked with her to the doorway.

"Yeah, wasn't too sure how quickly it would finish." Miranda closed the door and put in her command code to secure her lab for the night.

"so what movie are we watching tonight?" Miranda walked by his side toward the large room they had created as the movie theatre.

John grinned "funny you should ask, I hope your in the mood for some serious guts and gore."

She groaned "please don't tell me we're watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the re editored one."

"Well it was either that or the Saw movie, can't remember what one though, 2 or 3."

"I think that the movie committee need to seriously re-think their choices." Miranda sighed "I think I might miss the movie in that case."

John immediately shook his head "nah, you can't. We've saved you front row seat, if I have to sit through Rodney and Radek dissecting every detail, and how it's impossible to kill something this way or that way, then so do you."

"I don't even know why my brother brought me those movies, he know's I don't like them." Miranda imagined strangling her brother and immediately felt better.

"maybe you weren't specific about what movie you wished him to buy." John opened the door and waved her ahead, grinning when he heard her sigh as she caught sight of Rodney and Radek enthusiastically waving to her, indicating the two empty chairs they had saved.

"remember, you were one the one who brought the movies here, insisting on sharing them with the population?" john nudged her forward.

It must have been around an hour into the movie when Miranda felt her eyes getting really heavy, the sounds of the movie and the whimpers of fear, groans at the gory scenes faded away until there was nothing but blackness. Having experienced it before, Miranda waited, cocooned in the emptiness. Pain slammed into her head as blurred images flashed through her mind to quickly for her to understand. It was the feeling of fear, the screaming, the heaviness on her chest as if she was unable to suck air into her lungs that informed her of something devastating approaching. The image of a face appeared before her, she could feel her throat closing, struggling to get breath in. The image twisted into a smile and with no second thought she physically reached her hand and grabbed the closest thing and dug her fingers in tight.

Unfortunately it turned out to be Mckays leg, during a particularly suspenseful scene. Mckay let out a blood curtling scream, leaping up, causing a chain reaction as Radek sitting beside him got a fright, similar screams were occurring around the room. John on the other side of Miranda hid his shock and started smirking. He turned to congratulate Miranda on her scare tactic but stopped when he saw her closed eyes.

"Miranda, you alright." John's question brought Mckay back to his senses, he was about to rip verbally in to her when he saw her lips turning blue.

Reaching at the same time, both John and Mckay felt Miranda's neck to find her pulse low and erratic.

"Doc we need you here now." John called over his ear piece and Mckay shoved the seating out of the way and eased Miranda down onto the floor.

Carter got there as John began checking Miranda's air ways, she reached down to take her hand when Miranda's eyes shot open, her body arching off the ground as air once again rushed into her lungs. Miranda's hand went up and touched Carter's face, her pupils dialated to the extreme where there was no colour apart from black.

"Danger." Miranda croaked out before falling unconscious.

With John, Mckay and Radek watching Carter contacted the tower and asked them to do a deep space sweep with Atlantis's warning system


End file.
